The Warm Coward

My paused rain, my
paused and gathered rain,
my ceiling-lake of swords,
held cloudburst breath
hungry for gravity’s suck,
for plummet & quill
like flags across my back
or glass tines –

You’ve trembled all my life,
waiting to dip, draw up
my veins’ ink
& feed me overdue script.

I could walk the rest of this hill
without calling your
late lash down, toss into town
ahead of clouds’ glower –
duck dry in some motel:
the warm coward.
   So I won’t. 

   But I won’t
Beg for shower.
I’ll keep your freeze,
step all over your endless shadow.

   
   
C. Way/ SnailCrow.com © 2008

I’ll be collecting different writings here about depression and anxiety.
   

4-6-08
   

Cull & Flight

Sun-blotting span,
slow & sure like
cloud-shadow on
naked desert foothill.

Then the grinding talon,
the pluck from your post
like calyx culled from stem,

hooked through nape,
winged slow & lazy like
mosquitos rich with freight.

Sleep through all flap, swoop.

Now descend:
set on feet again,

or tucked in nest
to take tiny, blind
beaks to breast

   
C. Way/ SnailCrow.com © 2008

Eggtooth Cicadas

I would live my life in a field of eggs.
Thousands of beak taps and scrapes
muffled to murmur narcotic.
I’d live for that sea of blunted click.
Through my shell I’d almost see shapes.
I’d peck up holes for arms, palms, legs.

I’d put up drapes before I’d beg.

   
   
C. Way/ SnailCrow.com © 2008

All Trunk

Focus all feeling as if in a leg,
Ghettoize it, pen it in,
until the chopping jettison.

Focus all feeling as if on a bough,
herd there your beetles, bluejays — like cows –
until bark’s unseen, then let sink saws. 

All trunk, immobile.
All column of calm.
All torso, noble:

a psalm; something
embalmed

   
   
C. Way/ SnailCrow.com © 2008

Get Used to Kelp

Is this all you know?
Toeing on melting ice floe,
Anxious for the next cold wafer
in hoped-for chain of white
to dunk up into air from black sea
like a line of shocked eyes?

The next step will meet wave,
not wobbling raft,

get used to clam
and kelp.

   
   
C. Way/ SnailCrow.com © 2008

The Slowmen

Slowmen are
Unconnecters,
Monotasked,
Watchful from forgotten slots,
Plug-ends missing socket,
Following shadows’ carve of light,
Letting themselves statue,
Golem-lumber too slothy for eyes,
While bee bombs buzz
and vaporize.

   
   
C. Way/ SnailCrow.com © 2008

Cathedralling Washington Heights

Rice and chicken on Riverside Drive,
Q-Bert-face graffiti on the wall,
Debussy’s “L’Cathedrale Engloutie”
   floating from the mouths of leaves,
Rice and chicken splattering the sidewalk,
A bird watching rice and chicken,
Debussy floating from the mouth,
Rice spraying the sidewalk,
Chickens pecking at leaves,
Debussy walking down Riverside,
Huffing Gauloises & tracing his fat hand
   along gang tags,
Eating rice-chicken,
Brushing leaves from his face,
Laying down on the sidewalk,
scratching his beard
  like a chicken scratching dirt,
tapping his boots to “Gasolina,”
halfdreaming of drowned
cathedrals.

   
   
C. Way/ SnailCrow.com © 2008